


Shoulder To Shoulder

by kally77



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M, Post NFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:12:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kally77/pseuds/kally77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't fade away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shoulder To Shoulder

It all started with a bang.

Angel couldn’t say he was all that surprised about it. With Spike, many things started with a bang. And usually, it only got worse from there. Which was why this time, he decided to intervene right away and stop things before it got too bad.

He wedged the old business card he used as a bookmark close to the spine and put Proust away, heaving a sigh as he pulled himself out of his armchair. Maybe vampires didn’t grow old, but Spike certainly had a knack to make him feel the weight of his years. 

He followed muttered curses and a burned, acrid smell to the kitchen and stood on the threshold, arms crossed, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead.

And tried very hard not to laugh.

Spike was standing in the middle of a disaster area. Several pans, some filled, some empty, but all dirty were laid out on the island in front of him and on the stove at his back. The oven was humming softly, so Angel supposed there might be something in there too. Maybe another bang waiting to happen. Flour and sugar were sprinkled liberally over all available surfaces. There were eggshells on the floor, along with various empty wrappers. All in all, that was par for the course for Spike’s always catastrophic attempts at cooking – why he insisted on eating, Angel could simply not fathom. The part that had Angel inwardly guffawing was the chocolate. At least, he thought it was chocolate. He simply couldn’t imagine how Spike had managed to have chocolate explode in such a way that the walls, ceiling and himself were all covered in dark splatters.

Meeting Angel’s eyes, Spike glared for all he was worth. “Not a word,” he growled, pointing a finger at Angel in a gesture that could have been menacing if said finger hadn’t been covered in chocolate too.

Angel shook his head. “Can I at least ask what you were trying to do? Bake an apocalypse?”

Stepping gingerly over the worst of the mess on the floor, Angel started to pick up the trash. He might as well begin cleaning up now, since he already knew he’d be the one doing it in the end. He wasn’t in the mood to browbeat Spike into it, not today.

“I was making madeleines,” Spike grumbled, turning away to dump two pans in the sink.

Angel frowned at him, taken aback. He must have misheard. “You what?”

“Madeleines,” Spike snapped, throwing him a scathing look. He pulled the trash bin near the counter and, in one swoop of his arm, dumped what was left of the flour, sugar and milk in. “I’m not poncy enough to bake you a birthday cake so don’t even think about it.”

Angel stared. “How do you...”

Shrugging, Spike continued to clean in his rather unique fashion. “You always got maudly at this time of the year, and then you started reading that damn Time Lost book, always around the same date. I’m not entirely stupid, despite what some people may think.”

Another scathing look was met with absolute surprise. Unmindful of where he was stepping, Angel crossed over to him. His hands smeared the drying chocolate on Spike’s cheeks when he cupped his face. His lips had never been so sweet – and neither had the rest of him.

The madeleines burned.

***

After that night – that fight – that near apocalypse – those deaths – Spike came to dread stormy nights. It wasn’t that he cared much about a bit of rain. He actually liked storms, always had. There was just something about the smell of ozone filling the air, about the wind and thunder battling it out, about a gray-blue sky ready to burst out with light and water that filled him with glee and sheer life.

It seemed to have the exact opposite effect on Angel, though.

Whenever the weather took a turn for the worse – which, granted, didn’t happen all that often; it was Southern California after all – Angel’s eyes and mood darkened. He seemed to become better than ever at finding corners in the small apartment they shared. Spike tried to get him out of these brooding moods any way he could, and fast.

Sometimes, all he needed to do was dial the kid’s number and hand the phone to Angel. The sappy look on Angel’s face whenever he heard his son always caused Spike to roll his eyes and mutter about softhearted wankers. Secretly, though, he kind of envied the kid for being able to cheer up Angel without even trying.

Sometimes, it took a lot more work. 

Touching Angel’s things was easy, if ultimately boring. There were only so many places he could hide Angel’s sword or the trinkets he had saved from the end of the CEO-era. Getting rid of his poncy hair products, on the other hand, never got old.

Insults were always a favorite, whether they were directed at Angel’s hair, wardrobe, taste in women or ancestry. One day, Spike even poked fun at the kid, too; he never repeated that mistake.

Occasionally, Spike ran out of fresh material. He’d move straight to talking with his hands when that happened. But sometimes, even that didn’t work, and Angel would just accept the blows with a look etched on his face that Spike only knew too well. The look that said – I deserve this; I deserve worse. Nothing made Spike angrier than that look.

Once, on a particularly stormy night almost five years to the day after they had walked alone out of that alley, everything failed. Even after the storm faded, Angel remained locked in the hell of his guilt.

They had come home through unexpected, torrential rain. Under Spike’s wary eyes, Angel had shrugged out of his jacket and gone to hide in his makeshift office. For the next few hours, nothing worked. Angel just sat in there, sodden and trembling, his eyes vacant when Spike tried to shake some life into him. 

Desperate, Spike decided to resort to another kind of touch. 

He ran a bath then manhandled Angel out of his wet clothes and into the tub. The big ox shivered when he stepped in and his too cold skin hit the too hot water, but he still needed Spike’s hands to help him sit down.

“Honestly,” Spike muttered as he knelt by the tub. “The things you make me do.” He squeezed some fruity gel on a washcloth and started rubbing it over Angel’s skin, starting with his arms, then chest, then legs, feeling the tension slowly melting away. He kept his touches chaste – until Angel’s cock started responding, that was. Then he abandoned the washcloth and let his fingertips play over the hardening flesh.

A long, deep sigh fell from Angel’s lips and he blinked several times, his gaze finally finding Spike’s. He looked vaguely apologetic; bastard. Spike tightened his hand until he pulled a pained gasp from him.

“The next time you do this to me,” Spike said gruffly as he continued to pump Angel’s cock, slow and tight, “I won’t play nice anymore. I’ll fuck some brains back into you, that’s what I’ll do. See how the Scourge of Europe likes a dick up his ass for a change.”

Ignoring the threat, Angel moaned and arched into his touch. He only lasted a few more seconds.

“OK,” he said afterward, when Spike had helped him dry off, guided him to their bed and wrapped himself around him. 

Spike’s hand stilled in his hair before resuming their slow petting. “OK what?” he asked cautiously.

A long moment passed before Angel answered. “What you said. Next time. OK.”

And suddenly, Spike was praying for a storm.

***

They met Nina two days before the full moon, but something in the way she moved already hinted at power beyond that of a human.

There was an awkward hug, then equally awkward questions. Spike observed from a few feet away, already bored at ‘hello’. 

Things got a lot more fun when she stopped mid-sentence, sniffed, glanced at Spike, then slapped Angel. “I should have known you were gay. And all this time I thought it was me!” She strode away with all the fury of a scorned woman.

Spike was still laughing about it at the next full moon.

***

They were walking in front of a club, one night, when Spike slowed down, then soon stopped. Angel turned an impatient look at him.

“No, we’re not getting a drink,” he said, holding back an exasperated sigh. “We’ve already—”

“Shh.” Spike gestured at him to be quiet. His head tilted to one side, he was peering at the club, a faraway expression on his face.

Puzzled, Angel followed his gaze, unsure what he was looking for. After a few seconds, the song ended. Spike seemed to awaken from a trance.

“Dru used to love dancing on that song,” he explained quietly after a moment.

A pang resonated through Angel. He hated when Spike started to sound so nostalgic – he hated it even more that there was no going back, not for either of them – and Spike knew it as well as he did.

He racked his brain for something to reply – something to lighten the mood – but all he could find was a gruff, “Well, I’m not dancing with you.”

Spike threw him a filthy glare. “Like I was asking you to. Wanker.”

Looking away again, Angel hid a smile. Back to insults. All was right in the world.

***

Angel entered the bathroom before more than a couple of locks could fall to Spike’s murderous hands. His eyes widened in horror. “Put the scissors down!”

The blades clicked sharply, another curly lock falling down to scatter on the tiles. Spike glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. “What are you on about, now?”

“The scissors,” Angel said on the tone he had perfected more than a century earlier to talk Drusilla out of her most insane moments. He reached out to Spike and carefully disarmed him. “That’s it. No harm done.”

Spike frowned. “Have you lost your bloody mind?”

“Have you?” Angel shot back. He set the scissors down by the sink and reached out to weave his fingers through Spike’s hair. Gripping gently, he pulled Spike to just an inch of his lips. “How would I do this if you cut it?”

Whatever protests Spike raised, they were lost in the kiss.

***

Three months after they moved into the apartment, Spike went out alone one evening and came back with a laptop computer. Angel eyed the thing warily but didn’t ask questions. Sometimes, it was better not to know. Plausible deniability, he thought it was called. Working with lawyers had taught him a few things, not all of them to be forgotten.

He also didn’t ask questions when packages ordered online occasionally turned up on their doorstep. He’d rant, remind Spike they were trying to keep a low profile, but eventually, grudgingly enjoy whatever it was Spike had bought this time. Still, he always felt a pang of guilt when he thought of the people who received the bills for their big screen TV, the player and its too many DVDs (Spike’s movie tastes were appalling, although he did every now and then appease Angel with a good classic), imported beers, handcuffs and chains (which they had needed for a case) and anal beads.

But the day he glanced at the screen in passing and saw his name, he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. Spike had been tapping on the machine all day long, and had only just taken a break to warm some blood. Apparently, he had been writing.

_Suddenly, five Sukliugh demons rose from the thick fog swirling around Spike and Angel. The brunette let out a high-pitched shriek as he cowered behind Spike._

_“Spike,” he said in a breathless (A/N: I know he doesn’t need to breathe, it’s just a figure of speech, think before flaming you bloody wankers) voice. “We’ll never kill them all! We’re going to die!”_

_Spike smirked at his frightened sidekick. “No worries, luv, I promised you a shag and this will just take a minute.”_

_In fact, it only took Spike thirty-two seconds to dispatch the demons with his bare hands. He then kissed Angel to an inch of his unlife and bent him over the closest tomb for some deep man-love._

“Hey! Get your grubby paws off my computer!”

Angel jerked back and turned bulging eyes at Spike. “W-what,” he said, pointing a shaky fingers at the computer, “is _that_?”

Spike pushed the top of the computer down, locking away the outrageous words. He looked and smelled wary. “Nothing,” he muttered. “How much did you read?”

“Enough to know that’s a lie!” Angel sputtered, livid. “You weren’t even there when I killed the Sukliugh demons! And you certainly didn’t _shag_ me in some graveyard!” His open hand banged the table next to the cursed machine. “And I don’t shriek! Or cower!”

Rolling his eyes at him, Spike picked up the laptop and held it behind him as though to protect it. “It’s just _fanfic_ ,” Spike said, his tone implying that he was explaining that the sky was blue to a three year old child. “It’s not like I’m writing the bleeding Watchers Diaries or something.”

“Fanfic?” Angel gave him a confused look. “What is that?”

Two hours later, having discovered the great evils of adultfanfiction.com and this thing Spike kept calling ‘eljay’, Angel was back to thinking asking questions was just asking for trouble. And still, dumbfounded, he couldn’t help asking a last one.

“They think we do _what_?”

***

She came to their apartment on a moonless winter night.

Angel had gone out to talk to some informant or other and Spike was nursing a beer, waiting for him to come back. When three knocks echoed through the apartment, he thought Angel had forgotten his keys and sauntered to the door, already trying to decide if he wanted to fuck first, or if a blowjob would be a better opening to the festivities. His mind went blank when he saw Drusilla on the threshold. She smiled at him and walked in on the tip of her toes, as graceful as a ballerina. She circled him once before draping her arms over his shoulders.

“The stars said you’d be here,” she whispered on a tone of great confidence. “Did they tell you the ball will start soon in the castle beneath the sea?”

Spike’s throat felt very tight, suddenly. “Dru…”

She clucked her tongue. “You never knew how to listen. Bad Spike. Need to be punished.” She leaned in, pressing her face to the crook of his neck and biting without further warning.

Spike gasped at the so familiar feel of her mouth pulling hard on his blood. Without thinking, he closed his arms around her, holding her tight. It wouldn’t last – it _couldn’t_ last – but for just a moment, he could pretend they were a hundred years back. Hell, even twenty. Twenty years earlier, she had been his entire universe. Twenty years. It felt like just a day. Like an eternity.

“You taste like Daddy,” she murmured when she stopped drinking. Freeing herself from his embrace, she twirled, arms raised high to give grace and her laugh like church bells. “Like Daddy and like fire! Does it burn you inside?”

She stopped twirling abruptly and came back to him, her nose brushing his as she peered into his eyes. “I can see it. I can see it burn! Like a butterfly in a honey jar!”

As gently as he knew how, Spike cupped her face in his hand. “You can’t stay here, pet. You’ve got to leave before Angel comes back.”

She nodded. “The ten of cups is the best.”

“I’m sure it is, luv. But you have to leave. Do you understand?”

Her expression fell and she leaned forward again, resting her forehead against his. “But I’ve been cold for so long,” she whined. “Even the stars are cold. And you’re warm. Won’t you warm Princess?”

“I can’t, luv. You know I can’t. And you know if he finds you here he might kill you. You have to go. Please.”

She pulled back, and her wounded expression broke Spike’s heart. He knew she couldn’t stay, knew she’d never stop killing – knew he ought to have killed her himself. Just the same, despite everything that had happened, despite the cheating and the chains and the Slayer and the soul and Angel, part of him still loved her. Part of him always would.

“We’ll dance again,” she whispered as she retreated to the open door. “When the cherubs lose their wings and the moon cries, we’ll dance.”

Spike merely nodded. Even a smile was beyond him. She disappeared in the hallway and he closed the door, leaning back against it for a moment.

When Angel came back an hour or so later, Spike had finished the pack of beer. And the bottle of scotch they kept for bad nights. And the old whiskey he wasn’t supposed to know about, hidden on the highest bookshelf behind a tight row of the most boring books imaginable. 

He threw a scathing look at Angel as the bastard stepped in. “Sometimes, I really hate you,” he muttered, slurring the words a little.

Angel’s confused look slowly faded when his gaze fell to the marks on Spike’s neck. “I know.” He sighed and drew Spike into his arms, ignoring both his curse-laden protests and his uncoordinated efforts to free himself. Pressing his lips to where Dru had bitten, he repeated, “I know,” but to Spike’s ears it sounded like, “I miss her too.”

***

Angel had decided not to say anything. Only badness lay that way.

He hadn’t been snooping per se, but he knew that was Spike would think, and then he’d bitch about it for weeks.

Honestly, though, if he didn’t want Angel to read his poetry, why couldn’t he hide it better?

For three nights, he bit his tongue to keep quiet. In the end though, he had to get it off his chest. He understood metaphors and images, but really?

“I am not like chocolate,” he erupted in the middle of patrol. “And you, you are definitely not like honey!”

***

When Spike crashed the Viper, Angel didn’t talk to him for seventeen days. And for seventeen days, Spike made fun of him and of his attachment to big, shiny toys. He dusted off his Freud and analyzed Angel and his issues as they pertained to the car. The entire time, Angel glared – without a single word.

On the seventeenth day, which coincidentally (or not) was when the last of Spike’s injuries healed up, Angel put his fist in Spike’s face and called him an idiot.

Then he added, scathing, “You could have burned.”

And Spike did feel like an idiot.

***

Angel wanted to stay.

Spike pointed out that they had killed every sort of imaginable demon and saved the planet more than enough times already. Wasn’t it time to save other worlds?

In the end, Spike won. He cheated – got Angel to talk about the past and everyone they had lost, then supplied as much alcohol as was needed to get him good and passed out – but he won.

Once they were in space and halfway across the solar system already, there wasn’t much of a point for Angel to scream anymore. Besides, he quickly learned to enjoy zero gravity.

***

“Spike, you’re going too fast.”

“Can’t you learn a new song already? You always—”

“You crashed the Viper.”

“Yeah but—”

“And the tri-bike.”

“That wasn’t—”

“And don’t get me started on the plane.”

“It wasn’t a plane. And you told me to fly it. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Not push the engines so much they’d stop! Like you’re going to do to this thing.”

“It’s not a thing! It’s the best ship—”

“It’s falling apart!”

“—we could afford.”

“And that’s why you can’t break it like… Told you.”

“It’s not my fault!”

***

They had the ship fixed and refilled the liquor cabinet while they were at it – it wasn’t really a cabinet, and the liquor was some strange new concoction, but it burned going down and made their heads feel light just as well as the finest scotch.

As they took off, Spike wasn’t looking at the planet they were leaving behind again. He wasn’t looking either at the space spread out in front of them, only waiting to be discovered. Instead, his eyes were on Angel, seated behind the commands, a look of concentration on his face as he maneuvered them out of the system.

Sometimes, he tried to remember how many years he had spent with this man. How many battles they had fought – together or against each other. How much they had lost, how much they had grieved – how much they had laughed, too. He had lost count of how many tears he had not cried against Angel’s shoulder, and how many sobs he hadn’t soothed with a gentle hand running at the back of that never-bowed head.

So long, they had played this game. Still, it felt like it was just yesterday that they had stumbled out of that alley, shoulder to shoulder, bleeding and hurt inside and out – but together.

Angel glanced back at him when they reached open space. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Spike shook his head and smiled.

So long… And that was only the beginning.


End file.
